How to kill the ThinkPad navigation keys in Ubuntu?

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furball4
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How to kill the ThinkPad navigation keys in Ubuntu?

#1 Post by furball4 » Sat Oct 30, 2010 10:19 pm

I would like to kill the forward/backward navigation keys that are positioned to the right and left of the up-arrow key on the ThinkPad keyboard. I use mouse gestures for that kind of thing, so all they represent to me is an off chance that I'll hit one while composing a post online, which results in losing the post...

I killed them in Windows via a ThinkVantage app, I think, but I'm not having any luck in Ubuntu. I messed with the keyboard mapping utility, but it doesn't seem to know the keys exist.
Current: P50
Past: W510, T60, T42, T20, 560X, 560

Radioguy
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Re: How to kill the ThinkPad navigation keys in Ubuntu?

#2 Post by Radioguy » Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:55 am

The placement of those keys is [censored] annoying.

Not speaking from a Linux perspective (yet), I know when I make the same mistake in Firefox and then jump forward, the entered text is still there. I'm not sure how long it's cached, but if I close the tab and restore it, it remains. As extra protection, I still have the Lazarus extension installed, so if the worst happens, I can use that to restore it.

I don't know if Firefox on Linux will do this, but Lazarus might be worth looking into if it works on a Linux Firefox install.
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furball4
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Re: How to kill the ThinkPad navigation keys in Ubuntu?

#3 Post by furball4 » Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:02 am

Figured it out. I remapped them with the CompizConfig Settings Manager. I didn't even have to know what their keypresses looked like to the OS, I just captured them during the customization process. (Though I did find out, via 'xev'. Turns out they are keys 166 and 167 and they appear as XF86Back and XF86Forward.)

I was able to map them to Maximize Window and Unmaximize Window (Restore Window) in General Options. I also mapped the SHIFTed versions to Show Desktop and Put to Next Output in General Options and Put, respectively, to get some heavier use out of them. Not too shabby.
Current: P50
Past: W510, T60, T42, T20, 560X, 560

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